


the road outside my house is paved with good intentions

by donutsandcoffee



Series: origin/outcome [2]
Category: Bourne Legacy (2012), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Crossover, M/M, Snark, at least not of the physical kind, pre-fix it, there is actually no character death involved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-05
Updated: 2012-09-05
Packaged: 2017-11-13 14:34:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/504526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/donutsandcoffee/pseuds/donutsandcoffee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People think that Clint Barton died when Aaron Cross was born in Outcome, but people are wrong. People are always wrong.</p><p>Clint Barton died when Phil Coulson died with a hole in his chest, and Aaron Cross is just someone built from what’s left.</p><p>(This is the story of Clint Barton’s death.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	the road outside my house is paved with good intentions

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Fall Out Boy’s song Hum Hallelujah.

 

“A DEFINITION NOT FOUND IN THE DICTIONARY  
Not leaving: an act of trust and love.”  
― Markus Zusak,  _the Book Thief_

 

 

There are only two parts of Clint Barton that truly define him: the part that loves Phil Coulson, and the part that trusts him. Everything else is built upon these two, and these two parts may coincide with one another; but ultimately, when they cease to exist, everything about Clint Barton also ceases to exist.

-

After the Chitauri Invasion, the Avengers Initiative is created, and Clint Barton gets a family. For the first time in his life, Clint has a family and everything is beautiful, all flowers and sunshine and butterflies—

Except, it isn’t.

(One day after the Chitauri Invasion, Clint Barton finds out that Phil Coulson died, and the part of Clint that loves Phil dies together with him.)

-

Tony Stark might be a smooth talker, but convincing a long-established, shady government organization takes a whole new different level of smooth-talking.

“Absolutely not, Stark,” Fury says, one eye glowering down with more intensity than most people’s two. “You can take Banner and Rogers all around the world for all you want, but Barton and Romanov are SHIELD’s assets. Unless necessary, they are to live in the SHIELD compound and abide by SHIELD’s rules.”

Tony opens his mouth and closes it again, for once at a loss of words. Fury sees this as a victory.

Tony stomps out of Fury’s office like a child whose toy has been taken away, and Clint, who’s been waiting outside throughout the meeting, gives him a small smile.

Tony blinks when he sees Clint. “Look,” Tony starts, “I’ll find a way, okay? This isn’t anything new, SHIELD never believes me anyway; just a small problem, nothing too difficult to fix, and I’m good at that, you know, fixing problems—“

“It’s okay, buddy,” Clint quickly cuts, giving Tony’s shoulder a friendly smack, “I kind of expected it anyways. We’re still at team, okay? I have your back, you have my back, all that shit. We just don’t have to… cohabitate.”

“I,” Tony says, but his shoulders sag in defeat, and he laughs too loudly, the way he laughs whenever he just realizes he shows too much emotion.

“You’re going to regret this, bird brain,” Tony says good-naturedly, but it still sends a pang into Clint’s chest. Clint must’ve hid it well, though, because Tony just gives him (and the rest of the unsuspecting people in the hallway) a “peace” sign before walking away. So yeah, there goes the idea of living in the Stark Tower.

The thing is, Clint should be okay with this. Heck, Clint used to live with the fucking _circus,_ dirty caravans and broken trailers and whatnot. SHIELD compound is like a _castle_ in comparison with that hellhole he used to call home. Clint should be totally okay with this.

Except, just right at that moment, one agent walks past Clint and gives him a dirty look, and Clint’s mind quickly recalls a file written with _Kevin Allen, engaged to Shirley Winston, partner died in the Chitauri Invasion by an arrow to the neck_ —and for the first time in his life, he wishes Tony Stark was more stubborn than he already is.

-

With the shortage of agents after the Invasion, it isn’t a surprise that Clint is declared fit for duty after only three weeks of psych evaluation.

Clint has never been _excited_ to go for an op—he’s an assassin, not a crazed gunman—but he honestly can’t help looking forward to it this time, because an op means that he can finally go out of the base, and out of the base means escaping the crushing gaze of every single SHIELD agents he’s wronged, one way or another.

Which pretty much includes everyone. His life isn’t really awesome at the moment.

The worst thing about living in SHIELD compound, though, is that _Phil_ also used to live there. Clint still has to stop himself from thinking that Phil would pop up from one random corner, just walking pass him in the hallway with stacks of paperwork, giving him a small smile that no one else would notice—

He tries not to think so much of Phil, these days.

So he takes the first mission offered to him, and before he knows it, he is sitting in one of SHIELD’s prep rooms, bow in his hands as he waits for the handler he’s been assigned to.

As if on cue, a man enters the room, all swift efficiency like Coulson (well, so much for not thinking about Phil). His suit isn’t quite right though, because the top button is unbuttoned, and there is no tie in sight. Phil has been Clint’s handler for god knows how long that what should’ve been acceptable clothing choice seems _obscene_ in Clint’s eyes.

“Agent Clint Barton,” the man says, snapping Clint out of his thoughts, “I’m going to be your permanent handler starting from today.”

Clint lies back on the armchair, feigning nonchalance, as if his brain isn’t screaming a litany of _not Coulson not Coulson not Coulson._ “So you are?”

The man blinks. “Interesting. You’re probably the first person these days who doesn’t tell me ‘your reputation precedes you’.”

“Maybe I’m the only person here who doesn’t talk like I’m straight out of a cheesy buddy-cop TV show,” Clint shrugs, and continues when the man’s eyes crinkle in amusement, “or maybe I just don’t give a damn about your reputation. Either way, you’re going to be my handler, so let’s be clear from the start: are you the possessive, acting-like-a-clingy-jealous-boyfriend-I-never-had-instead-of-my-handler type, or are you the I-don’t-give-a-fuck-as-long-as-you-get-the-job-done type?”

The end of the man’s lips twitch upwards. “I’d like to believe myself to be the trusting-you-to-do-the-right-thing type,” he says, and the answer feels like a sucker punch into Clint’s gut because it is so very _Phil_ , and he feels ridiculously disappointed when the man says, “Eric Byer.”

_not Coulson not Coulson not PHIL—_

“Clint Barton,” he says, smiling so wide that his cheeks hurt, “I think we can get along well.”

-

They can _never_ get along well.

Their first op went to hell. Okay, that wasn’t exactly true, because on paper their first op went smoothly with no apparent glitch.

Except that Clint’s hands are still trembling and he can’t still quite say anything without feeling like he’s going to vomit because he just shot his target _in front of his fucking children_ and _why didn’t he see the kids coming, shit,_ he’s going to be sick, his mind involuntarily thinks of a car crash, bloodied steering wheel and bloodied hands of his parents—

There’s knowing your parents dead, and there’s seeing them die in front of your eyes. Clint knows too well how much the latter can affect a kid.

Clint slams the door to Byer’s office just to make his point, whatever that point is, and Byer—that fucking bastard—seems unfazed by the action. It takes the older man a few seconds before he looks up and says, monotonously, “good job for today, agent.”

Clint grits his teeth in frustration and runs his fingers through his hair. He walks up to Byer’s desk. “You didn’t tell me.”

“What?”

“You said you trusted me to make the right call, but you _didn’t tell me_!” He slams Byer’s desk, sending his coffee cup clattering in its saucer, “You—the mark’s kids were _there_. Fucking _toddlers_ just _witnessed_ it. I thought you said—you said you _trusted me_ and you didn’t—“

“I trust you to make the right strategic call, Agent Barton.” Byer puts his papers down and stands, “I am merely taking the moral and emotional viewpoints out of the equation for you to do so. You may not have had another opportunity to take such a clean shot.”

“They are just— _Jesus_ ,” Clint chokes, “they are just _kids_.”

There is a short, deafening silence before Byer says, quietly, “Utilitarian.”

“What?” Clint snaps.

“You have to be utilitarian, Agent.” Byer says, louder this time, “believe that sacrifices are necessary, and what you’re doing—what _we’re_ doing—is for the greater good.”

Clint blinks. “Utilitari—fuck you, okay? They are fucking _toddlers_ , Jesus Christ. Neither are even _ten_. Phil— _Coulson_ wouldn’t have done this.”

Clint knows that’s a low blow, because it’s not like Byer has to be Coulson or anything, but that still doesn’t justify Byer’s reply:

“Agent Coulson’s dead.”

Clint blanches. He feels his stomach drops, something bubbling inside him, waiting to _explode_ as he strides across the room, balls his hand and pulls it for a punch—

“Agent Barton, I’d like you to stop and reconsider what you’re going to do,” Byer says calmly, and Clint’s hand stops mid-air. “Assaulting superior is a violation of Rule C-337A of SHIELD Employment Relationship Rule, and you might be charged for a range of crimes including threatening behavior and disloyalty. And considering recent events, I’m not sure that you’d want that.”

 _Considering recent events._ The words actually manage to talk some sense into him. Frustrated, he spins on the ball of his foot, walks away, and punches the door frame, the window glasses rattling against its frame.

“You— _god_.”

Byer just eyes him from afar.

“If it makes you feel better,” Byer says after a while, when it’s obvious that Clint isn’t going to say anything, “I’ll be working with Agent Romanov tomorrow. You’ll be assigned to Agent Sitwell.”

Clint sniggers humorlessly; it actually does make him feel better. In fact, that is actually the best thing Clint has heard for the past week, because Natasha is _so_ going to hate him, and when Natasha hates a handler, she’s going to make their life miserable.

When he leaves the office, he makes a point not to show his smile.

-

They get along well. Fuck.

“I thought you were my _friend,_ ” Clint catches up with her in one of the SHIELD’S hallway, and he doesn’t care if he’s whining; because really? How in the world could anyone even remotely like Eric Byer. The mere _notion_ of it baffles him to no end.

Natasha just shrugs. “They are not mutually exclusive, you know. Being your friend and liking him.”

“What if I say they are?” He says, sharply, and it came out much more serious than he intended.

Natasha stops in her track. “Clint,” she says, exasperated, as if she’s explaining this to a five-year-old, “I’d leave _SHIELD_ in a heartbeat if you ask me to. But you aren’t being yourself right now. Not when it comes to him.”

“Jeez, Tash, I was just—“ _joking_ , he wants to say, but he can never lie to her. He settles with, “I just. I just don’t see what you all see in him.”

“Maybe you will, Clint,” Natasha says, “once you start looking at him as Eric Byer, and stop looking at him as not-Coulson.”

He doesn’t have anything to say to that.

-

Clint avoids Byer for the next few weeks.

It’s not as difficult as it sounds. Despite being his permanent handler, Byer is also assigned to other agents sometimes, and Clint’s clearance level in SHIELD is high enough to check Byer’s schedule and refuse some missions. So all Clint needs to do is to take missions only when Byer has other missions, and another handler will be assigned to him automatically.

The downside of this is that he gets bored. He’s still a part of the Avengers, of course, but the thing about a team of superheroes is that you don’t really need them unless there’s a threat of global proportions, and just because one alien race invaded the earth once doesn’t mean every super-villain and their mother would decide to rule the earth, too. So now the Avengers Initiative is mainly dormant, and if Clint doesn’t take any assignments from SHIELD, he practically has nothing to do.

The boredom isn’t even the worse parts. The worse parts are the SHIELD agents, people he used to think as brothers and sisters, now looking at him with fear and disgust, looking at him with _distrust_ ; they are the look, the weight on his shoulders, the guilt at the back of his mind; they are the lack of warm welcome, the absence of smile, the life without small talks and company.

And the _worst_ part of it all, of course, is the Phil Coulson-shaped hole in his life. Everything he does remind him of what Phil _doesn’t_ , that there’s no longer a second coffee cup across his table in the morning, no couch in the office he can crash into, no reminder post-its written with neat handwriting he secretly collects, no— _nothing_. There’s just this _void_ , the empty side of the bed, the lack of suits in the wardrobe, and the part of him that loves Phil Coulson dies over and over again everyday.

It only takes him five weeks to cave in.

“To what do I owe the pleasure, Barton?” Byer’s voice carries no tone through the com, but there’s so much amusement in it he may as well be laughing now. Bastard.

“With all due respect, sir, shut the fuck up.”

“This is rich, coming from someone who, according to records, doesn’t seem to understand the term ‘radio silence’.”

Clint _growls_ at that. He really, truly hates Eric Byer with every fiber of his being. He doesn’t really know why—the fuckup during their last job isn’t something small, but it could’ve been dealt with some good-natured conversations and agreements—but something, _something_ about Byer grates on him.

“I understand the term, sir,” he spats. From the corner of his eyes, he sees one unsuspecting man walking towards him, but he decides to continue, “maybe I just don’t feel inclined to follow it.”

“Barton, target has breached your perimeter,” Byer says instead, “you might want to maintain silence.”

“YOLO.”

There’s a pause. Clint imagines Byer’s blood veins are comically popping up on his forehead and smiles at the thought.

After a good long minute, the target walks away, and Clint can hear Byer exhale in relief.

“Huh, funny,” he can’t help commenting, “I never knew you cared.”

There’s another pause, as if Byer is contemplating whether he should say anything at all. “Barton,” he manages, “I need you to trust me.”

“Yeah, um, not happening,” Clint immediately says, because _really_ , “I’m not going around trusting every emotionless bastard I come across.”

He can hear a sigh from the other end of the line, and suddenly Byer snarls, “ _Wake the fuck up, Barton_. What do you think you’ve been doing? Delivering babies in the hospital? You and I don’t deal much with the living, Barton. We make our living on death.”

Something is caught in his throat, and suddenly Clint can’t say a thing. “I’m going to repeat this for the last time,” Byer says, “I need you to trust me. I need you to do so because what we’re doing here? I have your life in my hands, Barton. If you can’t trust me, I’m going to ask Fury to reassign me to someone else, because I can’t be responsible for someone’s life when they don’t hand it to me willingly.”

Clint’s heart is pounding. This is it. A chance to get away from Byer, once and for all.

But what comes after? Sitwell? Sitwell reminds Clint too much of Phil and he doesn’t want that—

What _does_ he want, anyways? Someone who doesn’t remind him of Phil? But that would take a really controlling handler, and Clint wouldn’t be able to stand that. And why does _Byer_ remind him of Phil anyways? Byer is everything Phil Coulson isn’t— _wasn’t_ —and isn’t that what Clint needs?

 _Once you start looking at him as Eric Byer, and not as not-Coulson_ , Natasha’s voice echoes in his head, and he finds himself saying, “show me why I should trust you.”

His eyes are fixed on the target, but he can practically _see_ Byer smile. It should disturb him that he knows Eric Byer this well only through an argument and one-and-a-half ops, but it doesn’t.

-

The mission was unsurprisingly a success.

-

They go for another op, and another, and _another_ , and slowly but surely, Barton-and-Byer reputation catches up with Barton-and-Coulson.

In hindsight, it isn’t so bad, really. Byer doesn’t hesitate to call Clint out on his shit and leaves Clint a lot of room for improvisation, two sure ways to gain Clint’s respect. They still argue, of course, but that’s unavoidable; Byer and him, after all, disagree fundamentally on the whole emotion thing ( _you’re immoral,_ he says, and Byer just says, _it’s amoral, Barton, maybe you should look it up_ ). Byer is also the complete opposite of Clint—prim and proper, graduated with a cum laude and climbed up the rank in military faster than anyone could count to three—and it must’ve been killing him to see Clint—uneducated, rule-breaking carnie—pulling all his shit out of his ass.

(Clint also realizes that in a way this also means that Byer’s like Coulson, except not really. It's unsettling, like a picture made out of edges and corners and things that don't fit right, and Clint tries his best not to be surprised every time Byer does or say something Phil wouldn’t have.)

They respect each other and have each other’s back in the field, and they argue all the time. They argue about the best TV show on air, about the current US political climate, about _anything_ under the sun, really. And about the sun, too, once. Or twice.

And then they argue more.

It becomes a habit. _Their_ habit, Clint notices. it’s _their_ thing. Byer would say something—a statement, an opinion—and Clint would disagree for the sake of disagreeing, disagree because he _can_. People think they hate each other, and proceed to scratch their head once they see Barton-and-Byer’s impeccable record.

Case in point.

“My vote’s still on Brangelina, you know,” Clint says out of the blue as he waits for the unsuspecting drug lord to come out from his apartment.

Byer hums to the com. “I refuse to grace that comment with a reply,” he says, amusement subtly dripping through every word, “but we all know Jennifer Anniston is a much respectable woman than Jolie can ever be.”

Clint laughs, _actually_ laughs, and says, “someone’s been watching too much Friends.”

“I just find the depiction of espionage in Mr. and Mrs. Smith simply too unrealistic that it distracts the enjoyment of the more… _well-informed_ viewers.”

That is, of course, bullshit. Clint has learned that for all their jarring differences, Byer’s taste in entertainment is the same as Coulson’s. Which is to say: shitty.

“Maybe you should’ve watched the Hurt Locker instead, sir. It’s been applauded by critics for its realism.”

“Target’s at five o’clock,” Byer suddenly says, and Clint quickly turns. He aims, waits, and pulls the trigger right when Byer says, “and I might if you’re the one buying the DVD.”

It is a clean shot, square on the temple. Clint grins from ear to ear. “Only if you’re the one making dinner, sir.”

-

“Movie night” is added to the unsaid list of their habit.

-

The op spirals into absolute _shitstorm_ ten minutes after Clint was deployed, and the last thing Clint remembers is falling into a dirty, brown-colored river with three bullet wounds.

They are in Somalia. _Of course_ they have to be in Somalia, one of the few places in the world that the US government now pretends to have never existed, so there goes any hope for fast retrieval; they are in Somalia, and Clint has three bullet wounds on his arm and leg and it’s a dirty river which guarantees his wounds to be infected; they are in Somalia, but Clint is the one in the river and Byer is meters above him in a helicopter, and they can easily fly away as Clint dies from bleeding or infection, whichever comes first.

Clint hates Somalia.

The next thing he knows he wakes up with a pounding headache and a raging fever. His whole body aches and he is drenched in sweat, and he tries to sit up before realizing that he’s more than nauseous; he rolls to his side, gags and _vomits_.

Clint Barton has laughed in the face of death, but at that very moment he thinks he is going to die.

Because honestly? The only thing that allows him to do so is Phil Coulson. He can take wounds and tortures in stride because he knows Phil has his back, and he struggles to stay alive because he has someone to come back to. And now? he’s _alone_ , so fucking alone, and if he dies here, right now, no one would even know—

“It’s okay, Barton,” a voice says, and suddenly there’s a hand at the back of his neck, rubbing in small circles, “it’s okay, you’re safe here. We’re in one of the safe houses. You’re safe.”

He gags even when he has vomited everything, and he chokes for another minute before what the voice says registers to him. _Barton. Okay._ He slowly looks up to the owner of the voice. _Safe._

“We’re safe?” He croaks.

Byer looks into his eyes and nods. “For now.”

It’s not the best reassurance, but Byer doesn’t lie either, and that’s enough for Clint to drift back to sleep.

The next five days become a blurry of movements. He remembers Byer, tinkering with their broken radios to receive a signal, _any_ signal; he remembers the food, stolen from the neighborhood, and Clint notices that Byer always makes a point to find soft ones that wouldn’t hurt his stomach; he remembers himself, tossing and turning and hurting and _dying_ , looking up to Byer and says, _I think you should leave me here, sir, I’m just a deadweight,_ and Byer looks back at him as if he’s stupid and says, _I’m your handler,_ as if that explains everything.

On day six, Clint’s fever subsides, and a couple of SHIELD agents come knocking on their door to retrieve them.

Clint spends the next ten days in the medical. The Avengers visits once, Natasha visits every day, and Eric Byer never once leaves his side.

Clint Barton doesn’t like numbers, so he doesn’t remember dates; instead he remembers places, names and events and faces, like scenes out of a silent movie. There’s Saigon, where Agent Coulson saved his life from local gangs and _Coulson_ became _Phil_ ; there’s Budapest, where absolutely nothing happened and a thousand stories are invented to replace a boring one; there’s Luanda, where Natasha laughed out loud in public for the first time ever since the Red Room.

There’s Mogadishu, Somalia, where Eric Byer could leave and _didn’t_ , and _Byer_ became _Eric_.

-

(“Movie night” is silently bumped up on the list.

It is now right under “staying alive” and above “not getting hurt”, which pretty much turns it into a ritual. It happens after every op at Eric’s place, except when one of them is in medical. When that happens, Clint would sneak in through the vents with a laptop and Eric would flex his verbal muscles to convince the medics that he is _supposed to spend the night in Clint’s room watching movie, did your inferior mind just suggest me otherwise?_ It takes people only a couple of ops to catch up with this— _thing_ , this thing of theirs, whatever it is.

More and more items have been added to the list ever since.

The highest item on the list is still “arguing”.)

-

It seems easy.

He laughs with Natasha whenever he gets to see her and cracks jokes through the com with Eric throughout an op, surprising many junior agents who probably thought that Eric Byer was devoid of any sense of humor. He meets the Avengers occasionally, and it’s always one of the happiest moments in his life, pulling pranks on Steve and lying about ‘Mirgardian custom’ to Thor and making lewd jokes with Tony and spending quiet times with Bruce.

It seems easy. But most of the times it’s not.

Because he can try to have fun like there’s no tomorrow, except that there _is_ tomorrow; and when tomorrow comes Clint is back in SHIELD, under the gaze filled with a mixture of pity and hatred. He would see people, people whom he used to think of as the closest thing he’s ever had to family; people who used to call his name from afar with a big grin on their face and fill him in on gossips he missed during ops; people who would shift inside the bench in the cafeteria to give him space to sit. People, who now look at him as if they’d give the world just to be able to see him bleed to death.

He goes for an op with Eric and watches a movie afterwards, arguing their way through both; he returns back to SHIELD and sits by himself in the large table in the cafeteria and finds out that there’s a betting pool on how and when he will die.

Phil Coulson is no longer around.

It’s not easy. It’s not easy at all.

-

It’s funny, in hindsight, that what sets him off in the end was not the glare leveled at him, or the murmurs behind his back, or the anonymous death wishes he occasionally receives.

It is, instead, an unassuming trip to the Avengers tower.

It is a bright Friday evening and Eric is out for another op somewhere in Siberia, so Clint invites himself to the Avengers tower. Clint goes to the floor with the common room, and when the lift door opens he could hear the sounds of laughter from afar. The hall is dark, but there is light from the dining room, and as Clint approaches the sounds he can hear Bruce make a comment. The comment isn’t funny, but the entire table bursts laughing, laughing to the inside joke that comment must have entailed, and it suddenly strikes Clint that _he doesn’t belong here at all._ The Avengers is a family, but Clint is never part of that family, and there is no more room for him.

Phil always had a room for him.

Phil is also dead.

It hits Clint unlike a bucket of cold water or brick wall or whatever it is usually compared to; instead it feels like _suffocation,_ like smoke from a burning building, like slow-sinking quicksand. He suddenly feels nauseous, and before his legs can give up on him, he _runs_.

He runs away, away from the floor, from the Avengers and from SHIELD; for a fleeting moment he wants to ask Natasha to come with him, but Natasha finds a family in SHIELD, and how unfair would it be to her? Not to mention Natasha is attached to Bruce and Steve in a way Clint hasn’t finally understood.

So Clint runs away, and he runs away alone.

Except he isn’t alone.

Eric Byer goes off grid in Siberia at 18:05 hours and is declared rogue six hours after that incident. SHIELD barges in his place the next day and finds it largely empty.

He appears in front of Clint’s motel room five days later, shoving his luggage into the room, ignoring Clint’s surprised expression and silent questions of _how_ and _why_.

-

CIA extends an open hand to them.

 _Of course_ CIA extends an open hand to them. CIA hates SHIELD like that younger brother who’s always jealous of their older brother, so CIA takes whatever CIA can from SHIELD, including its best marksman and his handler. _Especially_ its best marksman and his handler.

Oh, he did lie and everything. Clint even bothered to change his name and created a full backstory about an Iraqi soldier who survived an exploding roadside bomb—other than SHIELD, they are also running away from _Natasha_ , after all. But Eric refuses to change his name and that should have tipped them off, but CIA pretends nothing happens, and Clint also takes what he can get.

The man looking through their files is the Director of CIA himself, and Ezra Kramer barely skims the pages.

“Kenneth Kitsom—circus, then military,” Kramer says as he flips through the pages. He pauses only twice, once at Clint’s marksmanship records and once at Eric’s list of achievements. “Shady background,” he says frankly, and Clint’s body tenses before Kramer continues, “but this will make do. We’ve taken in more people with worse.”

-

They hand Eric Outcome after only a few months. Clint is not surprised. They demand Clint to be their first subject. Clint isn’t surprised about this, either.

He is, however, surprised by Eric’s reaction.

“No,” Eric says, final.

Kramer purses his lips. “But—“

“I understand that theoretically, this project is sound, and you need the best of the best,” Eric cuts, sharp and fast, “but there are too many variables involved. We need at least a couple of test subjects before assigning a valuable asset like Kenneth.”

Kramer looks at them disapprovingly, but doesn’t say anything.

When the meeting goes on and the topic shifts, Clint leans to Eric’s side and whispers, “’such a valuable asset’?”

“You’re my agent, not a science project,” Eric says.

Clint grins playfully, “Ooh, _my_ agent. Kinky.”

Eric’s face is straight, but he jams his foot on Clint’s under the table.

(Outcome does eventually take Clint, but by that time Outcome is no longer an experiment. Three is up and running without a glitch, and Clint enters as Five.)

-

The pills change everything.

Not the green pills, no. The grin pills enhance him physically, but that isn’t saying much. Clint has always been fitter than most people of his age group, so the physical enhancement doesn’t really affect him much.

The blue pills, though, are another story. Clint wakes up one day and suddenly the world turns into a box filled with endless knowledge and questions waiting to be answered, and Clint wishes he had read more books because there are so many of them and there is so little time. He vaguely remembers a brother who took away all his books and said, _we’re too stupid for this,_ and for the first time in his life, he doesn’t believe his brother.

-

“Aaron Cross,” Eric reads his file and crunches his nose, “I don’t like that name.”

“Maybe that’s why I chose it, sir,” and Clint would’ve given him a mocking smile, but Aaron just gives him a wry smile.

Eric gives him a look as if he’s unsure which one he prefers to see.

-

They still argue. In fact, they argue _more_ —yes, apparently that’s possible—because Aaron now has the blue pills to back up his arguments. They still argue about everything—sometimes it’s about something stupid, sometimes it’s about something serious.

Sometimes Eric says something simple like _vanilla ice cream is good, fact_ , and Clint would’ve argued, _that’s stupid, chocolate is better_ and the argument ends. But Aaron argues _that is a very misleading statement because good is a very subjective word based on opinion,_ and the argument would go on for a ridiculously long time.

(Sometimes Aaron argues, _it’s a stupid thing, for you to follow me._

And Eric would raise his eyebrow and say, _I’m your handler_.)

-

Eventually, they happen.

No build up, no grand gestures of love. They just… _happen._

It is during yet another argument—it’s always arguments with them, isn’t it—and Aaron won’t even remember what it is about. It could’ve been about an op or about the latest baseball game, it doesn’t matter; what matters is that he is balancing two glasses of red wine with his right hand when he raises his voice, and the wine spilt all over the carpet when his lips crash into Eric’s.

(Clint would’ve thought of another man with steam-pressed suits and impeccably neat ties, but Aaron’s hands are tangled in between Eric’s slightly-creased shirt and when his lips find the man’s neck, there are no ties looped around it.

Clint would’ve thought there was something wrong with it, but Aaron doesn’t.)

-

Sex is good. Competitive sex is better.

-

When Aaron wakes up, Eric is already sitting upright, typing away on his laptop, but he lets Aaron’s arms stay wrapped around his bare hips. It still takes Aaron by surprise how Eric--whose personal space is larger than most people--is such a sucker for cuddling, but Aaron isn’t complaining.

Aaron presses closer into Eric’s side, and Eric puts his left elbow on Aaron’s head.

“So, I just found this interesting documentary on Netflix,” Eric says.

Clint would’ve laughed at the idea of watching a documentary, but Aaron is _hungry_ , hungry for information and knowledge he used to fail to understand. He looks up with bleary eyes and asks, “What is it called?”

(It's the first time in his life that he’s equal to someone else. Clint had always been weaker than his brother, less interesting than all of the Avengers, and way less mature than his partner could ever be. But Aaron—Aaron is smart, and capable, and special, and _equal_ , to Eric.

Aaron likes the taste of that word on his tongue. _Equal_.)

-

Clint Barton looks at Eric Byer and sees a version of Coulson that isn’t quite right, like an altered reflection in a broken mirror. He jokes around and calls him _Byer_ because the man can never be more than a painful reminder of a lover who would never return.

Aaron Cross looks at Eric Byer and sees a man who pieces him back together and follows him when no one else does. He smiles and calls him _Eric_ because he is grateful and there’s always this stupid grin every time he thinks about Eric and _god_ , _he’s in love with him._

-

People think that Clint Barton died when Aaron Cross was born in Outcome, but people are wrong. People are always wrong.

One day after the Chitauri Invasion, inside the confining walls of the Helicarrier, Clint Barton finds out that Phil Coulson died, and the part of Clint that loves Phil dies together with him.

Three years after the Chitauri Invasion, in a narrow alleyway in Indonesia, Clint Barton meets Phil Coulson, and the part of Clint that trusts Phil dies as the lies are laid out in front of his eyes.

Aaron Cross is just someone built from what’s left, in between.

-

This is the story of Clint Barton’s death.

This is also the story of Aaron Cross’ birth.

Clint Barton thought of a woman whom he trusted with his life, an organization he was willing to die for, a ragtag group of superheroes he could almost call his family. He thought of a man who found him bloodied and broken in an alleyway and offered him a chance for redemption.

Aaron Cross doesn’t.

Life goes on.

 

 

“Only the phoenix rises and does not descend. And everything changes.  
And nothing is truly lost.”   
― Neil Gaiman,  _the Sandman_


End file.
